Category Archives: Comics

On Television

They might be called Smart TVs for their clever capability to befuddle the old fashioned viewer. Long ago and far away are the days you walked up to the television set, turned a knob to On, turned the other knob to Channel 2, 4, 6, or 10, TV Guide in hand, reached over the set to fidget a bit with the rabbit ears antennae, and slid back to the couch to watch a recorded picture version of what your parents when young had listened to on live radio.

Television has grown, if not matured; still, we haven’t quite reached the television walls Ray Bradbury predicted in “Fahrenheit 451,” where the entire wall is a television, and keeping up with the Joneses means adding additional TV walls until your room is entirely enclosed in TV, the effect being that you are part of the television show you are watching. But the new virtual reality headsets are probably skipping over Bradbury’s wall sets.

One advantage of old television was that at the end of the broadcast day, TV rested – it went off, off the air. A sign off screen appeared. The station transmitters shut down, the Star-Spangled Banner played (absurdly, no game following), then a test pattern with a shrill hum signal, a high E organ note. Nothing more to watch. Midnight. You either went to bed or read a book. Or went out walking, nothing on television.

Not that it matters what’s on television. Whether you’re watching “Masterpiece Theatre” or “All in the Family,” the “Red Skelton Show” or the “Andy Griffith Show,” “The Colgate Comedy Hour” or “Arthur Godfrey and His Friends,” you have to fill in the dots. Television is a DIY proposition.

“The structural qualities of the print and woodcut obtain, also, in the cartoon, all of which share a participational and do-it-yourself character that pervades a wide variety of media experiences today. The print is clue to the comic cartoon, just as the cartoon is clue to understanding the TV image.”

Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media, 1964, p. 151, Signet Mentor

Waiting for Spring

We spend a fair time waiting, waiting for this, for that, for them and those to come and go, to start and end, to rise and fall, full and eclipse. And for Spring to spring, our world coiled like hair in plastic curlers held in place with bobby pins (see F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, “Bernice Bobs Her Hair”).

We don’t wait in Winter, when we freeze in place and live in the cold moment (waiting is Samuel Beckett’s dry theme), but as the great slow thaws finally come we start to wait for a stronger sun and almost believe again in Spring and Spring does come slowly over the horizon and up the sky climbing a ladder of weathered trellises where last year’s climbing vines still cling frozen in place.

We anticipate Spring with its cartoon-like colors unfolding:

Think Again

I thought once again
and again and again
and still the nagging
thing rang an alarm
clock in an assembly
line repetitive factory
too much time on my
hands think again our
Supervisor said again

I thought twice thrice
four to the bar again
with my factory wife
any number of numb
clock ticking times X
and after time was up
the world no more in
need of time clocks
we laid off thought

thought again and again
of my time on the line
spent thinking not off
the pieces clicking by
but on some other
think I can’t now seem
to remember again
lost as I am to thoughts
again and again and again

Mad Tea Party
San Francisco, 1968

Post Pandemic Blues

“Everybody’s going out and having fun;
I’m just a fool for staying home and having none.”

“Oh Lonesome Me,” Don Gibson, 1957

Rumor has it the pandemic is over, and folks are getting back to the way they were. Sidewalk cafes are filling with hopeful bon vivants, wine bars are recreating the gypsy jazz trio, tea rooms have put out the herbal welcome mats, and down on the corner, a lone violinist is busking the blues away. Movies? Newspapers and magazines? Some things are likely not coming back. But we can’t blame the pandemic for all our ills and woes.

Brick sidewalk cafe
Busker
Urban Cafe
Newspapers and Magazines
Coffee Noir

Pubs are open, and wine bars, bakeries and coffee shops. You’re lucky though if you can find a place to park in between the street seats impromptu platforms, or to find a warm tavern that serves both a hefty microbrew and a tasty pinot noir.

Wanted: A clean, well-lighted place, with polite waiters, a high ceiling and not too crowded or too noisy or too far away, with a live trio that doesn’t require ear muffs, a place that doesn’t mind singles sitting hour after hour over a book and the same cup of frequently topped off java.

Below: A friendly waiter.

And weddings are back in full motion, fashion, with updated attendance rules. Below, what to wear:

Wedding Dress
Cocktail Wear
Come as you are

Soon Spring will spring, doing its thing, a spring dance fling, prom night, a concert at an old venue downtown.

Spring Fling
Prom Night
Allegro con brio

But some folks might have the post pandemic blues, and don’t want to go out. In a way, the pandemic has set them free. No more shopping sprees. No more putting on the style. But what about a baseball game in the ballpark? There must be some way the afflicted can lose those post pandemic blues.

That’s Life

“They’ll never ever reach the moon,
at least not the one we’re after.”

Leonard Cohen, “Sing Another Song, Boys,” 1970

If we think of planets as globes of fruit, like an apple, orange, lemon, we might see them growing ripe, falling, turning bitter. If we see ourselves as fruit flies, we might caption a big lemon a planet in our sky.

The first planet outside Earth humans visit will probably be Mars. But will there be free parking?

We know there is life in the universe, because Earth is full of life, and it’s in the universe. But are there places in the universe where the sun god on a freezing cold day invites you up for a cup of hot chocolate or herbal tea?

On Earth, nature seems to overseed, replenishing by adding more and at the same time sowing excessively, creating overdensities. Think of pollens on a spring day, the fine flour that sprinkles and saturates and has everyone sneezing to beat the band. On Earth, life is abundant and various, mighty and powerful, strong.

When you look up at night, into the sky, what do you see?

When in the news new worlds are discovered and photographs published, we see tiny dots astronomers claim are actually galaxies thousands and thousands and thousands of light years wide. The point is to find (the scientist like a garden snail crossing the Sahara) another planet where life grows and people enjoy backyards during summer months.

Meantime, back on Earth, we’re still trying to find that place where the moon stands still, on Blueberry Hill. That’s life.

How I Spent My Artificial Vacation!

Dear Ai! Quick! Quick! Quick! Lickety-split! I need about a 500-word paragraph on how I spent my last summer vacation! I totally spaced this stupid assignment! If I don’t get it in by today the teacher, Mrs. Millgillicutty, not that her name matters much, won’t accept any more late papers! Something about we’re almost to next summer vacation. Anyway, I remember when we first got this assignment, and I was like, I didn’t do anything on my last summer vacation but lay on the beach at El Porto listening to a transistor radio! What’s to write about that! And I watched the surfers come and go and the waves blow all froth like the bottoms of cutoff jeans and the jets from LAX taking off over the bay looking way too fat to fly like the Dodo and the oil freighters off El Segundo and a few sailboats in the offing a word that was on our last vocabulary quiz by the way. Anyway, one day, one of the hottest, ever, you couldn’t even walk barefoot down to the water the sand was so blistering hot and I dropped my towel and jumped on it every few steps to keep my feet from turning toast until I got to the wet sand near the water and all was cool. I don’t like to take a bunch of stuff to the beach. Just my towel and my bag. In my bag I stuff an extra suit, a pair of shorts and an extra tshirt, my transistor radio, a bottle of water, an apple or an orange, suntan lotion, a comb, a Nancy Drew book (I had a summer goal to read 12 Nacy Drew books, and I actually ended up reading 17), a pair of binoculars, a foldup sand chair, a small umbrella, a pair of flipflops, and my purse. Oh, yeah, but I was going to talk about that one day, the hottest on record. I usually get to the beach around noon, after I’ve finished my chores, make breakfast, take out the trash, straighten up, empty the ashtrays. I live up on Gull in El Porto so all I have to do is walk out of the apartment and down to the beach and usually I’m the first down but soon there are the others my friends all strangling down like they had a bad night or something but the reality is the worst they might have done is stay up late watching movies on the all night movie channel. Of course there are parents, or parent, and they can be unsettling, what with their bickering and worrying and criticizing and stopping off at bars on the way home until you have to get your own dinner but not everyone’s home is like that in fact each home is quiet different even if the parents seem the same. Anyway, back to how I spent my summer vacation and the one hottest day I remember it’s like branded on my behind. Jocko the beach’s best surfer ever stops where I’m sitting and asks can he leave his board with me while he goes in for a dip the blackball flag is up and all boards have to be out of the water. I’m stupified. He’s never even noticed me before. But I’m totally chill and like if you want whatever and that kind of stupid self conscious response and off he goes into the water where he stays like three hours! I’m like HELLO! how long am I supposed to watch your stupid surfboard and it was that day I decided how I would spend the rest of my summer vacation and it wasn’t watching some stupid minihunk’s surfboard while he dolls his afternoon away in the waves. I’m not some sort of artificial doll, you know. I’m real. With something real to talk about. About 500 words is all I need! Thanks!

Sincerely, Beach Bum Betty

Dear Betty, Here you go:

I didn’t do anything on my last summer vacation but lay on the beach at El Porto listening to a transistor radio! What’s to write about that! And I watched the surfers come and go and the waves blow all froth like the bottoms of cutoff jeans and the jets from LAX taking off over the bay looking way too fat to fly like the Dodo and the oil freighters off El Segundo and a few sailboats in the offing a word that was on our last vocabulary quiz by the way. Anyway, one day, one of the hottest, you couldn’t even walk barefoot down to the water the sand was so blistering hot and I dropped my towel and jumped on it every few steps to keep my feet from toasting until I got to the wet sand near the water and all was cool. I don’t like to take a bunch of stuff to the beach. Just my towel and my bag. In my bag I stuff an extra suit, a pair of shorts and an extra tshirt, my transistor radio, a bottle of water, an apple or an orange, suntan lotion, a comb, my cell phone, a Nancy Drew book (I had a summer goal to read 12 Nacy Drew books, and I actually ended up reading 17), a pair of binoculars, a foldup sand chair, a small umbrella, a pair of flipflops, and my purse. Oh, yeah, but I was going to talk about that one day, the hottest on record. I usually get to the beach around noon, after I’ve finished my chores. I live up on 44th in El Porto so all I have to do is walk out of the apartment and down to the beach and usually I’m the first down but soon there’s the others my friends all strangling down like they had a bad night or something but the reality is the worst they might have done is stay up late watching movies on the all night movie channel. Of course there’s parents, and they can be unsettling, what with their bickering and worrying and criticizing and stopping off at bars on the way home until you have to get your own dinner but not everyone’s home is like that in fact each home is quiet different even if the parents are the same. Anyway, back to how I spent my summer vacation and the one hottest day I remember it’s like branded on my behind. Jocko the beach’s best surfer ever stops where I’m sitting and asks can he leave his board with me while he goes in for a dip the blackball flag is up and all boards have to be out of the water. I’m stupified. He’s never even noticed me before. But I’m totally chill and like if you want whatever and that kind of stupid response and off he goes into the water where he stays like three hours! I’m like hello how long am I supposed to watch your stupid surfboard and it was that day I decided how I would spend the rest of my summer vacation and it wasn’t watching some stupid hunk’s surfboard while he dolls his afternoon away in the waves. I’m not some sort of artificial doll, you know. I’m real! With something real to talk about!

Good luck, Ai

The Game Is A Foot

“The game is a foot, I’m certain of it,”
said the poet who talked the walk datum.
To bloviate down his shorts and long waits
about town he strolled and spoke and sprayed
the populace with one-off quips and quotes.
A foot player he was who climbed high limbs
lofty the poet tree of mystery.
Came he then to a steep stairway and down
he went a long way down a circus clown.
Loose freely from his three-rings born
he returned to la-la-land a surfboard
under his arm covered in salt and sand.
“If life be a game,” he said, “play I will
in waves never still twirl the pencil’s twill.”

“We take it as a given that games are useful, productive, redeeming forms of human experience and expression.”

The Poety Game

Lugubrious Fog

Lugubrious etymologically descends from the dinosaurs in “Allegro Non Troppo” (1976) when the great reptilian gargantuans gentle and armored alike move south ahead of the ice and melt into tar. In Bach fugue file they march.

I was sitting in bed four nights ago typing this, under a pile of covers, plus fully clothed, wearing two pairs of pants, three shirts, a sweater, a vest, a wool watch cap, and a pair of wool socks. It was 12 degrees Fahrenheit outside, windchill below zero. The house had lost power eight hours ago, years ago, the vicious east winds having blown down enough trees around town to put mist local folks in a freezer. But I gave up the typing in the cold. It was now 30 degrees inside the house. I pulled my hands inside the covers like a turtle for the long cold night and we decamped the wood igloo the next morning moving happily south to a warm house full of warm children.

Frost’s promises to keep keep us sustained, moving, to keep warm. Yes, “The woods are lovely, dark and deep,” but what melancholy invites us in? Our horse still questions why we might stop here. The museums are also lovely, though well lit, still dark and deep, security guards meandering the lost empty halls, the paintings wired, the statues as still and as cold as ice sculptures, and they don’t allow horses in. Anyway, we prefer trees wandering in the wind full of birds and squirrels and lost kites and balls and flying saucers and climbing kids.

Earlier that afternoon, I was in the backyard, preparing a place for Zoe, when I heard a rushing sound, a falling dinosaur come to roost, and heard the voice of the tall Sauroposeidon, a wind and wood splintering crash and crush, and looked north to my neighbor’s backyard to see the 100 foot 100-year-old east Pine limbs still shaking off the ice and snow where it had come to rest breaking through the ridge beam, the tree’s upper girth shattering off and coming to rest in the front yard.

The frightfully freezing cold day moves slowly lugubriously on and we learn that pine tree but one of hundreds of trees falling all about town in the east wind in soaked soils across power lines, cars, streets, houses, parks and lots.

Back home now, five days on, power restored, but morning after ice storm moving across last night, but still now, windless, half inch of ice coating tree limbs, cars, street, wires, the downed dinosaur leaning across the roof next door. Fog. The dickens of a cold fog. But should we lose power again the air is at least warmed up some, to just below freezing outside.

A lugubrious fog has settled in, sifting down through the firs, down the street, over the houses and yards dotting the rotting old volcano.

Happy Melancholy Day!

I was in the 8th grade, taking a multiple choice vocabulary test. I came to melancholy. One of the choices was happy. Another choice was sad. The word melancholy sounded happy. I blackened the circle next to happy with my number 2 black pencil on the Iowa Test page and moved on, but the word stayed with me, and I later asked Sister Mary Annette the meaning of melancholy. Her blue eyes peered out from her starched white habit hallowed in black. Sad, she said. Ah, what does Iowa know, I responded, and ran for the playground.

Cartoon: Scamble and Cramble and the Social Media Adventure